Be Brave and Be Strong
by Mirage159
Summary: Be brave and be strong. Her mother would say it every day, but now Heather is alone and wandering the Capital Wastelands, afraid to trust after a dark chapter of her life. But then she meets the Hero of the Wastelands, the Lone Wanderer himself, who's still haunted by the events that happened after he left the Vault a year ago. Together they learn to move forward and start anew.
1. Chapter 1

_So a friend of mine got me Fallout 3 as a gift recently and needless to say, I'm hooked and have decided to write a fanfic that has been cooking up in my head since my character was born and heard Liam Neeson's voice. I'm always a person who likes to think about what happens after the game is over and that's what this story is going to be about. Set a year after the events of Fallout 3, these characters I created will be experiencing a journey of self-healing and new beginnings._

 _I hope you all enjoy this story. Rating may change later on, but for now, just sit back and enjoy the ride._

 _Don't forget to **Fave/Follow/Review!**_

* * *

 **Chapter One**

 _"_ _Mommy, where's daddy?" Heather asked her mother, her voice barely audible over the sound of guns being fired. She hid her tear streaked face behind her tattered teddy bear and let out a fear filled scream as a grenade when off just outside their small shack of a house. "I want daddy!"_

 _Her mother's hand immediately covered her mouth and she was pulled close. "Honey, please be quiet or they'll find us!"_

 _Heather tried to do as her mother said and stay quiet, but the constant gunfire and the occasional explosion kept her whimpering and crying in fear. Not even her mother's embrace was enough to comfort her, not when she knew that her father was outside in the thick of the fight. The sounds of battle just kept going for who knows how long, before finally everything went quiet and her mother went stock still beside her. The silence after a fight was always the worst. You didn't know who had won until the door opened and the victor made themselves known._

 _But when the panicked shrieks of Mary, their neighbor next door, reached them, they knew it was a battle their small community had lost. Next thing Heather knew, the door was being kicked in and strange men in leather armor grabbed her and her mother, dragging them outside roughly and shoving them into the town square with Mary, the three other women that lived in their community, and Josh, the only other child in their small town. Heather didn't know what was going on, but her mother looked terrified of the bad men and she made sure to stick close to her. At least, that was her plan until a body on the ground a few feet away caught her attention._

 _"_ _Daddy!" she cried, dashing away from the group and running over to her father._

 _"_ _Grab the kid!" one of the bad men shouted._

 _She managed to reach her fathers body before one of the bad men grabbed her hair and yanked her back painfully. "Not so fast you little brat."_

 _"_ _Leave her alone!" Heather heard her mother plead._

 _Heather witnessed on of the bad men slap her mother roughly across the face, before grabbing her long chestnut colored hair and forcing her to look at him. "This one's pretty. I think I might just keep her for myself."_

 _"_ _Please, don't hurt my daughter."_

 _The bad man looked at Heather and grinned at her before looking at the body of her father. "Was that your husband, pretty lady? Sorry, but I'm afraid I had to put a bullet in her brains." Looking back at Heather, he said, "Hear that little girl? Your daddy is dead."_

 _Overwhelming sadness and pain filled her as she was dragged by her hair back to the group and thrown back into her sobbing mother's arms. The laughter of the bad men surrounded her, driving her mad and making her cry more than she already was. They were chanting her name, tormenting her with their sneers._

 _"_ _Heather! Heather! Heather!"_

 **oOo**

Heather's eyes flew open with a gasp and she sat up, her hands immediately lifting the sniper rifle that she kept by her side every night and pointing it at nothing. The nightmare was still fresh in her mind and she got up from the dirty mattress she had slept on during the night so she could check the rest of her shelter for signs of danger. But as she walked through the tiny shack of a house that she had been staying in the past few days, she found no signs of danger at all. All the windows were still boarded shut and the moldy sofa was still blocking the front door, just like she set it up every night since she arrived. Lowering her rifle, she finally managed to let out a sigh of relief and walked back over to the small bed to sit down. The bed springs creaked as she put her weight on it, the noise sounding unusually loud in the quiet space.

"Seriously, Heather, you need to start getting a hold of yourself," she muttered, grabbing her backpack off the ground and unzipping it.

She pulled out one of her five water bottles, each one filled with some of the purest water she had been lucky enough to find and took the smallest sip she could manage that would also quench her thirst. It wasn't as if she wasn't used to waking up from some sort of nightmare; her entire life for the past ten years had been a living one. But it was only recently that she had to start dealing with them all alone. She didn't have anyone to comfort her when she woke up screaming and in tears and tell her it was going to be all right. Not anymore.

"At least the living nightmare is over," she told herself softly, putting her bottle back in her pack and tying her honey colored hair into two messy braids.

 _Are you kidding yourself?_ Her mind scoffed dryly while she dressed. She pulled on her torn black leggings before slipping on her denim shirt and then her blue button down blouse. It was missing a button so a bit of her cleavage and bra showed, nothing that really bothered her much. A belt around her waist finished the ensemble. _You live in the wastelands! Every day you have to set foot out there is a nightmare!_

"Can't argue with that," she sighed as she slipped on her black combat boots and grabbed her rifle, getting off the bed and heading towards the barricaded door of her shack.

It was true. When you're living in the wild territory known as the Capital Wastelands, you're either fucked or you're really fucked. Until recently, she was one of the unfortunate people that had been very fucked, due to the nasty situation she had been living in, but thanks to the interference of an man who hadn't given his name, she had managed to escape the life fate had condemned her to and was living day to day as a scavenger.

It was an odd change of pace, living all by herself in the middle of nowhere, but she just couldn't allow herself to trust anyone on the off chance that they were trying to screw her over and help themselves. Heather would just have to learn how to adapt to the idea of being alone and get by as she had been for the past couple of months. She'd hole up in a suitable shelter for a few days and exhaust all the resources in the surrounding area before she moved on and started all over again. Once she had enough caps to get herself by, she'd try and find herself a safe place to live and spend the rest of her days working on forgetting and moving forward.

 _Just be strong and be brave,_ her mother would say right up until the day she died, overdosing on Med-X with the needle still in her arm. _All people have to suffer in life before God finally rewards them for persevering through their struggle._

"I'm not going to wait for God to help me," she said to no one as she pushed the couch out of the way from the door and opened the front door. "I'll create my own happiness and to hell with everyone else."

Stepping outside her small shack, she blinked several times against the brightness and made sure to get a good look at her surroundings before venturing out even further. Last thing she wanted was to get too far from her temporary home and get ambushed by a bunch of raiders. Once she felt that it was safe enough to venture out, she took exactly five steps normal steps and then one big step forward, moving over the frag mine she had buried under a light layer of dirt. She had exactly six mines buried in spots all around the entrance of her shack and memorized where each one was so she wouldn't accidentally set one off. They were her secret weapon in case anyone managed to sneak past her strung up bottles without causing them to ring and alert her of oncoming danger.

Once she was past her small maze of booby traps, Heather set out at a normal pace and headed toward a street of houses she had come across yesterday when scavenging. Normally, she would have cleaned the area out right when she found it, but she had spotted an Enclave robot roaming around the homes and thought it best to wait until today to scavenge. Clearing out the neighborhood meant she'd finish exhausting the last of the small sector she designated and could move on. She knew the city of Megaton was a couple of days away, so she could stop there and sell some of the things she had collected and possibly consider settling down there for a while.

"It's no Tinpenny Tower, but it's got walls and a lot of people guarding it," she said to herself as she walked.

 _It's also got a bomb smack dead in the center of town, waiting to blow up,_ her mind commented.

"Why do you always have to be so negative? It beats living out in the wild wastes where no one is safe."

 _I have to be negative so that we can survive longer. If you want to be the optimist, why the hell do you keep me around?_

"Well . . . because, I need you around to keep me sharp. That doesn't mean you have to shit on any idea I have for a place we can settle down. Besides, we'd never be able to afford Tinpenny Tower. Only the swankiest of people live there."

 _And we aren't swanky?_

This time Heather scoffed out loud. "As if. We're the furthest thing from swanky. If one of them Tower tenants saw us, they wouldn't hesitate to turn us right around and go elsewhere."

 _That's not our fault. We can't help it that we were dealt a shitty hand and lived ten years of our life as–_

"Don't say it!" Heather snapped, glaring down at the ground. "I don't want to fucking hear it. Now just shut up and let me walk in peace. I want to get all this done quickly so we can fucking move on."

Her mind obeyed her for once and she walked in silence for a couple of hours, stopping only to rummage through abandoned cars and piles of junk to see if she could find anything useful. She mainly found ammo shells scattered here and there that could be melted down for other purposes, but got lucky and found a dead raider who seemed to have passed away from an infected wound he had on his side. He had a pack with some food stuffs inside of it, as well as chems she could sell to a doctor in Megaton. But the best thing she found on his body was a radio that looked a little worse for wear, but worked fine despite it.

Smiling to herself, she tuned the radio to Galaxy News Radio and kept the volume on low, listening to the Jack Shaindlin number, Let's Go Sunning, as she walked toward her destination. The song put her in a better mood and she made it to the town as it finished and the voice of Three Dog came through the airwaves.

"Hey there, listeners, it's your old pal, Three Dog, here, AWOO!" he howled and caused Heather to laugh like she always did whenever the radio host bayed like one of the four legged creatures. "In recent news, slavery seems to have died down here in the Capital Wastelands ever since the kid from Vault 101 decided enough was enough."

Heather's smile fell as Three Dog began to speak about that topic and listened carefully, even though her stomach was already starting to churn and make her feel nauseous.

"It's been six months since our boy invaded the settlement of Paradise Falls with a shotgun and his trusted canine companion and put a bullet in Eulogy Jones' head. The bullet that started the slave rebellions! Ever since dear old Eulogy died, other slavers have been fighting among themselves to try and claim his seat as the slaver lord of the Capital Wastelands. Meanwhile, our very own Lone Wanderer has been taking out their slave strongholds one by one, freeing the captive slaves and taking out their so-called masters.

"Sadly, a lot of slavers tend to get away when the Lone Wanderer attacks a stronghold and they try and pick up the pieces, starting with tracking down their runaway property. So if any of you former slaves are listening, make sure to sleep with a knife under your pillow."

Heather turned off the radio after that and pulled out a flask she kept hidden in her boot. She didn't make it a habit to drink her troubles away, especially since alcohol was an expensive commodity she intended to save, but she'd make an exception right now. The idea of slavers wandering around the wastelands, hunting down runaway slaves was extremely unsettling for women, especially a woman like her who traveled alone.

"It'll be okay," she reassured herself, taking a sip of the whiskey in her flask, grimacing at the burning sensation it left behind as she swallowed. "Anyone gets near me, I'll just shoot them."

So Heather kept her rifle at the ready as she started searching through the small neighborhood of houses, grabbing up anything that could be of use to her. She placed food stuffs right into the empty duffel bag she had brought with her first, and after that she started adding miscellaneous items she thought could be valuable. Things like cartons of cigarettes and books that always sold for plenty of caps.

By the time she finally finished searching all of the houses, it was mid-afternoon and she had scrounged up a pretty decent hall to add to what she already had back at the shack. It wouldn't be fun to haul around two duffel bags full of supplies over to Megaton, but maybe she'd continue to get lucky and come across a brahmin caravan she could trade with. She could use some parts to fix up her rifle a bit more and she'd never say no to more ammo and frag mines.

She turned the radio back on and listened idly to the music streaming through as she made the two hour walk back to her shack, only having to stop once to deal with a pair of radroaches that attempted to bother her. As she neared her shack, she slowed down to make sure no one had followed her and the surrounding area was secure before continuing on. But the moment her shack came into sight, she stopped dead in her tracks and her hands shook slightly.

 _Why is the door open?_ Her mind demanded.

"I don't know," Heather whispered softly, dropping to a crouch and hiding behind some large rocks. She scanned the ground and saw that her six frag mines had been dug up. "The disarmed my frags too."

It was right then she heard the sound of something falling within the shack and raised her rifle, the shaking in her hands stilling immediately. The bastard was inside her shack and he was more than likely robbing her!

 _Good!_ Her mind snapped. _We can put a bullet between the thiefs eyes and take his stuff!_

"Is that such a good idea?" she asked quietly. "What if he's not alone?"

 _We didn't see anyone else coming in and it's not like a lot of people can fit inside that shack. Just hide here and put a bullet in his brain once he comes out!_

"If I'm going to kill someone, I'm going to at least going to look them in the eye before I end them."

Ignoring her minds talk back, she took a deep breath and started to quietly creep closer to her shack. She was only a couple of yards away from the door and the sound of rummaging within was louder than ever when she spoke up to alert the thief.

"All right, whoever is in there, I want you to come on out with your hands up," she announced. "I have a rifle ready to fire if you try anything funny."

"Damn it," she heard a masculine voice curse from within the shack. "All right, don't shoot, I'm coming out."

She heard the footsteps and watched a man, half a foot taller than her, step out of her shack, his hands raised high in the air like he asked. He wore black leather armor, with one sleeve missing from his left arm, where a Pipboy was strapped and a tattoo was nearly visible on his muscular bicep, a number it looked like. His whole body seemed to be packed with muscle, which wasn't odd when you were living in the wastelands. It may be a shitty life, but you got a hell of a body out of it. A black military cap covered his dark brown hair and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Just from a quick look over, Heather could tell he was a handsome guy, but also got the nagging feeling that he seemed familiar in a way.

Suddenly the stranger whistled and covered his mouth with a fingerless gloved hand. "Holy shit, I know you! I've met you before!"

Heather arched a brow and aimed her rifle right at his head. "That's very unlikely, since I've spent a good amount of my life tucked away in my own little corner of hell."

He shook his head and smiled. "No, I remember your face cause it's been haunting my dreams ever since I took that collar off your neck."

Heather nearly dropped her gun in shock as she realized who it was she was looking at. It all made perfect sense to her now, but just to be sure, her eyes drifted to the tattoo on his arm. "Show me your arm."

The not-so-stranger sighed, but did as he asked and flashed his tattoo. And there it was, as plain as day. Three simple digits that made all the fear go away.

"One Oh One," she read outloud, lowering her rifle and breathing out a sigh of relief. "You're the Lone Wanderer."

The Lone Wanderer flashed her the same charming smile he gave her two months ago and nodded. "That's right, and you're that girl I saved from that slave stronghold."

* * *

 _Okay, we've got our main characters ready and now it really begins._

 _Hope you liked the chapter. Don't forget to **Fave/Follow/Review!**_

 _Love,_

 _Mirage_


	2. Chapter 2

_And here you have it, Chapter Two of my Fallout series. Now that the Lone Wanderer and Heather have crossed paths once more, let's see where the road takes them from here!_

 _I hope you all enjoy this story. Rating may change later on, but for now, just sit back and enjoy the ride._

 _Don't forget to **Fave/Follow/Review!**_

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

 _Sweat dripped down Caleb's brow as he navigated through the slaver stronghold that he had stumbled across while he wandered the Capital Wasteland. He hastily wiped the sweat out of his eyes and he pressed his back to a wall while he checked his pistol's chamber, counting how many bullets he had left. Suddenly Dogmeat growled and let out a bark of warning beside him, a bullet piercing through the wall just beside Caleb's head._

 _"They just don't give up, do they, buddy?" he sighed to his Shepard mix, popping the chamber back into place and stepping out from behind the wall to fire at the slaver._

 _The bullet caught him right in the chest and he collapsed to the ground. Dogmeat ran out once he saw the man on the ground and viciously attacked him, finishing the bastard off with a quick bite to the throat. Caleb added this death to the count, putting it at four slavers he killed since he attacked the stronghold. He knew of at least three that had run off scared when the bullets started flying, but the ones that had stayed seemed to be focused on guarding the doors of one particular room in the three story building, right at the top._

 _He knew something was up when Dogmeat was already standing in front of the door, hackles raised and his lips curled up in a snarl. Reloading his pistol with some spare ammo, he raised the gun up and walked over to stand beside his faithful hound, counting down to the moment he would kick it in._

 _"Three, Two–"_

 _A woman's terrified shriek is what caused him to kick it in a second sooner and the sight before him made him spring into action. A large African American man stood over a terrified woman who knelt on the floor, sobbing and pleading. A gun was pointed at her head._

 _Caleb didn't hesitate and fired a shot at the man, hitting the shoulder. The man shouted in pain and at the sight of Caleb and Dogmeat, decided to not stick around and jumped out a nearby window. Dogmeat ran at the window, barking loudly and was followed by his master, who peered out and saw the man had landed safely on a pile of moldy mattresses they must have purposely set up there in case they needed to make a quick escape._

 _"Let him run, boy," Caleb ordered Dogmeat, who was still barking down at the slaver. "He knows that he's been beat."_

 _Turning his attention to the woman behind him, he cautiously approached her and dropped down to a crouch so he could help her. She had drawn her knees up and had her arms wrapped around them, hiding her face behind a curtain of honey colored hair while her quiet sobs filled the room. The lacy pink negligee she wore covered very little, so he tried to avoid looking at her more private areas and focused on trying to get a good look at her face._

 _"Hey there," he murmured softly, carefully reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, you're safe now. That man isn't going to hurt you anymore."_

 _She didn't lift her head and continued to sob, wrapping her arms even tighter around her knees. It was then that he noticed the slave collar around her neck._

 _"Will you allow me to take that horrible thing off your neck?" he asked._

 _The woman lifted her head then and Caleb sucked in a breath. She was young, maybe only a couple of years younger than him. And though her face had a nasty looking bruise on one cheek and her lip was swollen and bleeding, she was still one of the prettiest looking things he'd laid his eyes on in a long time. A heart-shaped face, sun-kissed skin that probably glowed under the right lighting, soft, pouty lips, and eyes the color of rain._

 _Eyes that were far to beautiful to be filled with so much fear and pain._

 **oOo**

Caleb caught himself staring at the girl he saved two months ago, never once imagining that this was how he'd run into her again. When he and Dogmeat had come across the small little shack, he hadn't thought that it could have belonged to someone, but based on how well stocked it was inside, he should have. He was really only going to take a couple of things, like some food to hold him over until he got to Megaton. But now he was in a bit of a dilemma, staring down the barrel of a gun that many would say was overcompensating for some shortcomings if her were to be the one using it.

Not that he had anything to compensate for.

She definitely looked a lot better than she did when he left her at The Republic of Dave. The bruises that had covered her body had healed and she looked a lot healthier than she did when he found her. Her honey colored hair was tied up into a pair of messy braided pigtails and her cheeks were tinged pink from being out in the sun. She looked even prettier than when he first laid eyes on her, but her gray-blue eyes still had a haunted look to them and were filled with so much loneliness and fear that it cause Caleb's heart to ache a bit.

Looking at the former slave girl's eyes, Caleb attempted to slowly lower his hands, but the movement must have caught her attention and she raised her rifle. His hands went straight up.

"I didn't tell you to lower your hands," she snapped at him, trying to come off as intimidating. It would have worked if her hands weren't shaking so much.

"Hey, if I were going to hurt you, I would have done it when I found you in that stronghold two months ago," Caleb reasoned, flashing her an uneasy grin. "And what did I do instead?"

When she didn't answer, he sighed and continued.

"I took that slave collar right off you and escorted you to the nearest town. Speaking of which, why aren't you there right now? It's not safe for a girl to be roaming around the wastelands by herself."

Her eyes hardened. "Why is it any of your business what I do with my life? I'm not a slave anymore, so if I want to wander the Wastelands by myself, I'm free to do so!"

Caleb stiffened a bit and took a step back. "Woah, take it easy. I'm sorry, you're probably right, it's just that I can't help but be concerned, especially since now there are slavers roaming around with not many places to go."

Her eyes darted to his hand and he realized he was still holding a tin of Cram. Glancing back at her, he could see she was annoyed.

"Drop it," she ordered him. He did so immediately and she continued, "And while you're at it, I'd like my frag mines back."

"I'll have to lower my hands if you want me to do that," Caleb informed her. "I already packed them up in my backpack."

"Well, fine, you can lower your hands, but don't you dare try anything." As he lowered his hands and unslung his pack from his shoulders, he could hear her muttering loudly, "I wonder how the rest of the Wastelands would react when they find out the Lone Wanderer is a no good thief."

"The Lone Wanderer has a name," he muttered back, unzipping his pack and fishing her frag mines out of it. "It's Caleb. And I didn't know you were the one living here."

"Bet your dog new. He was probably sniffing around like crazy because the scent was fresh." Caleb watched her look around and frown. "Where is your dog anyways?"

As if right on cue, Dogmeat's growl suddenly reached his ears and he spotted his dog standing right behind the former slave. The hound's ears were pinned back and his teeth were bared in a snarl as he slowly advanced on the girl, clearly not pleased at seeing Caleb held at gunpoint. The girl turned around and gasped as the dogs sudden appearance and her gun fell out of her hands. Dogmeat saw that as an opportunity to lunge at her, but Caleb quickly shot forward and wrapped his arms around her waist, yanking her back and behind him.

"Woah, boy!" he shouted, holding a hand out and the angered Shepard mix. "It's okay, buddy. She isn't going to hurt me." When the dog still continued to growl, he hardened his voice and barked out, "Dogmeat, yield!"

The shepard whined and backed off at his command, but stared at the girl refusing to take his eyes off of her even for a second. Once Caleb was sure that Dogmeat was calm enough, he grabbed the girl's rifle off the ground and turned to face her. She looked a little scared and kept looking back and forth between him and the dog.

"See, I just helped you a second time," he told her. "Do you believe me now that I'm not a threat to you?"

The girl stared at the ground and tried to take back her rifle, but he pulled it just out of her reach and held out a hand.

"Give me back my gun!" she snapped at him.

"Don't worry, I'll give it back to you," Caleb reassured her. "But before I do, you owe me a favor. By my accounts, I just saved you twice. Once from the slavers and just now from the scary dog."

"As if a dog named Dogmeat could scare me!"

"Then why'd you drop your gun?"

She fell quiet and crossed her arms over her chest, his gaze inadvertently drawn to her cleavage and the bit of her bra that was visible. Thank God he was wearing sunglasses. "Fine, you can take some of my supplies."

"Nah, that's not what I want," he said, shaking his head. "I want you to tell me why you left the safety of that town I dropped you off in."

"I don't have to explain myself to you. From what I hear on the radio, you tend to help people all the time without asking for something in return."

"Fine, then tell me where you're heading. There's no way you're planning on making this tiny shack your permanent home. All the stuff was packed up in duffel bags."

She frowned and shifted from foot to foot. "I'm on my way to Megaton. I plan on selling a good amount of what I have scavenged before deciding whether I settle down there or move on."

Caleb smirked and adjusted his cap a bit. "Well, talk about coincidence. I was on my way to Megaton too. How about we just head there together? There's no way you'll be able to carry all those duffel bags by yourself."

Her eyes flew wide and she looked like she was about to object, but he stopped her by cutting her off.

"Think of it this way. You let me escort you to Megaton and we'll consider this life-debt you owe me paid off, we can go our separate ways after that and you won't have to deal with me ever again. Unless of course you want to continue dealing with me, which, trust me, I won't say no to."

"Is that your idea of flirting?" she scoffed, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Cause it's kind of pathetic."

"Not my best line, I'll admit it, but if you let me stick around I'll try and come up with some better ones."

He saw the corner of her lips turn up the slightest bit for a quick moment and he gave her his most charming smile. Something he inherited from his dad and mastered before he was ten.

"Come on, let me just take you to Megaton. I'd sleep a lot better at night if I made sure I got you there safely."

The girls sighed heavily and groaned. "Ugh, fine, but it's only cause I could use some help carrying everything. If I tried to take it all myself, I might be adding another day of travel."

Caleb smiled brightly and returned her rifle. "Great! How about we start heading out tomorrow morning? If we get an early start, we can be in Megaton in about a day-and-a-half."

"I guess you might as well come inside then," she said, holding open the door to her shack. "But I get the bed. You can choose between the moldy couch and the floor."

"I don't mind taking the couch, even if it is a little moldy. I'll just throw a blanket over the worst of it." Turning to Dogmeat, he whistled for the dog to follow him inside, but the hound didn't seem to want to go into such a small shelter and laid down on the ground just outside the door. "Guess he'll be our look-out."

Caleb followed the girl into the shack and set his pack down on the couch, while she went over to her stash of supplies and added to it.

"Hey, I never caught your name," he realized, leaning back against the couch and taking off his hat. "If we're going to be traveling together the next couple of days, I should probably know what to call you."

Sitting on the bed, she started cleaning her rifle and answered, "It's Heather."

 **oOo**

Spending the night in a small shack with what he could only assume was a former sex-slave had to have been the most testing thing Caleb had ever done. Despite his way with words, he actually didn't have much experience when it came to interacting with women, even back at Vault 101 he'd only ever kissed one girl and had only ever been with a couple of women during those few dark months where he just wanted everything to end. So when Heather had gotten ready for bed and stripped down to her underwear to sleep, Caleb had a hard time getting to sleep and woke up the next morning tired and eager to get out of such closed confines.

"How did you manage to scavenge so much stuff?" Caleb found himself asking Heather hours after they had packed everything and set off toward Megaton.

"It's not really a lot," she told him, adjusting the strap of the bag she carried. "This is three weeks worth of scavenging at best. If I didn't have to eat and use up my ammo, there would be a lot more."

"You might be able to score yourself a few hundred caps with all of this. I'll make sure that Moira and Doc Church give you a good deal on anything you sell them."

He saw Heather look at him intently our of the corner of his eye. "So you're pretty familiar with the people in Megaton, aren't you?"

Caleb shrugged. "Moira and I are pretty good friends, I've been helping her write a book that's she's trying to get published. Doc doesn't like me, but that's mostly cause he doesn't like anyone. The sheriff's been fond of me ever since I disarmed that nuke that was sitting in the center of town."

Her eyes widened. "You disarmed the bomb?"

"Yeah, it was quite a while ago too," he told her, looking over to smile. "Surprised you haven't heard about it."

"Well, I wasn't exactly at liberty to listen to GNR every day like you are."

Caleb frowned at the bit of bitterness in her voice and stuffed his hands in his pockets, not really knowing what to say. He didn't know what it was like, being a slave and having no choice but to follow another persons command or risk severe punishment. Maybe he should just do the smart thing and stay quiet.

So for a couple of hours, they walked in silence while listening to GNR stream music through the radio waves. It was comforting having someone else to travel with besides Dogmeat, who was walking a little ways ahead of them, scouting for danger, but Caleb could tell that Heather was uncomfortable, her lithe form tense as they traveled along the broken roads of the wastelands. They didn't come across much trouble aside from a few boatflies that made for great target practice and an Enclave robot that started firing at them from a long ways away. Heather made quick work of it by firing a bullet into its circuits, but it didn't stop Caleb from angrily smashing the robot with a rock once it was destroyed.

"What did that robot ever do to you?" Heather asked him once he was finished making scrap of it.

He spat at the pile of metal and walked away from it. "Not the robot, just the people who made it."

Caleb took point after that, leading them through the Wastelands, all the while missing the curiosity in Heather's eyes as she stared at him.

* * *

 _Next chapter, Megaton!_

 _Hope you liked the chapter. Don't forget to **Fave/Follow/Review!**_

 _Love,_

 _Mirage_


	3. Chapter 3

_I'm so super psyched at how well received this story is! I was honestly shocked at how many followers I already have even though there's only a few chapter! Seriously, it's so uplifting to know I have all this support already and makes me want to write even faster!_

 _One of the reviewers pointed out that as a former sex slave, Heather should have a hard time trusting people, as well as have a severe fear of having anything around her neck or just sex in general. Believe me, Heather is emotionally fucked up and has serious PTSD. If she were living in our time, she'd be on suicide watch and would be on a ton of anti-depressants, as well as seeing a psychiatrist daily. We'll be exploring more of the trauma Heather is experiencing on a day to day basis more extensively in this chapter. The only reason she's not experiencing that with Caleb right now is because when you're in a terrifying situation and someone saves you from that, that person becomes your savior and you feel this unexplainable urge to trust them. That's how she views our Lone Wanderer, who is just as fucked up as she is._

 _Ahhh, but enough of my rambling! Let's get on with it! **Warning: This chapter contains adult situations, including the subject of rape.**_

 _I hope you all enjoy this story. **Rating has now changed to M as I am getting to some more Mature subjects.**._

 _Don't forget to **Fave/Follow/Review!**_

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

 _Heather dragged a stick through the dirt, her free arm clutching her ragged teddy bear as she drew stick figures of the people and houses from her settlement. She was pretty happy with how it was coming out, drawing little smiles on the people figures and on the sun shining above the settlement. It was enough to make her smile, despite how bleak things around her were._

 _"What are you drawing there, kid?"_

 _Looking up, Heather cringed at the sight of one of the stronghold's guards, a hunting rifle loaded and ready in his grasp. Gulping around the lump in her throat, she looked back down at her little drawing in the dirt._

 _"Home," she mumbled quietly, drawing another smile on one of the stick figures._

 _The stick she held was suddenly kicked out of her hand and the man swept his boot across the drawing. Heather stared in dismay as he did so, but did nothing to stop it so she wouldn't risk punishment for talking back._

 _"You ain't got a home anymore, brat," the man told her, kicking some of the dirt into her face. "You and the rest of the sluts we grabbed from your shitty settlement belong to us now. You got that?"_

 _Heather clutched her bear closer and remained silent, hoping he would leave her alone. But he clearly wanted an answer and grabbed her by one of her pigtails, shaking her harshly and causing her to cry out in pain._

 _"Don't you fucking ignore me, you little piece of shit," he snapped, his foul smelling breath hitting her face. "Do you understand me?"_

 _Tears pricked her eyes and she nodded numbly, whimpering far too much to be able to answer him clearly. With a scoff of disgust, he threw her down at the ground and spit at her. She forced herself to sit up and brought a trembling hand to her face to wipe away the tears and saliva that covered her face._

 _"Instead of wasting time and drawing in the dirt, why don't you do some fucking work? I know the pleasure room can use some cleaning up. The boys left a lot of stains everywhere."_

 _She got to her feet and started to walk toward the main building, where the pleasure room was located on the second floor. Casting a nervous look back every few steps, Heather saw the man who ruined her drawing join a dirty looking bald man with a goatee and a Chinese assault rifle on his back. She hadn't seen him before in the few months she and the other captives from her settlement were living here, but he seemed pretty familiar with the guards._

 _"Still get off on beating up little girls, Ralph?" the bald man asked the guard that shoved her into the dirt. "Glad to see some things never change."_

 _"Fuck off," Ralph spat at the bald man. "Jermaine won't let any of us touch the little bitch till she's old enough. The guy enslaves women, but draws the line at fucking little girls. Not to mention the son of a bitch has taken the brat's mother all for himself."_

 _"Why do you care if the bastard keeps a whore all for himself?"_

 _"That brat's mother just happens to be the finest piece of ass we've picked off the wastelands in years. Not fair that he gets to keep her all to himself."_

 _"Yeah, sounds like a shitty deal, but what can you do?" The bald man glanced over at Heather and give her a grin that sent chills down her spine. "Besides, just be patient. Odds are that kid is going to be pretty gorgeous too, so long as you don't beat her face up too badly."_

 _"I'll be at the head of that line when the time comes," Ralph chuckled darkly. "She won't be able to walk when I'm through with her. Anyways, come here for a good time? Want me to line up the whores?"_

 _The bald man nodded and followed Ralph, both of them walking past Heather on the way to the main building and the pleasure room within. The bald man looked her dead in the eyes as he passed and chuckled at her._

 _"I'll be back for you in a few years, baby doll."_

 _A promise that gave her nightmares for years._

 **oOo**

"Welcome to Megaton," spoke the automotive voice of the robot that stood in front of the metal gates of the town. "Friendliest town around."

"They have a robot greet people when they come into town?" Heather asked Caleb, staring at the machine with genuine awe. Normally, most robots she comes across try and shoot her.

"Yeah, it's name is Deputy Weld," Caleb explained, walking past the robot and waiting for the gates to open. "Once they open the gates, we'll head to Doc Church's and then Crater Supply right after."

Heather nodded and scratched the side of her neck anxiously as the gates started to screech open to allow them access. She felt a bit nervous about being around so many people after living in solitude for the past couple of months. The very idea of being surrounded by strangers had her paranoid and mildly panicked. Maybe she could just turn around and run back to her shack.

 _It isn't too late,_ her fear spoke in a panicked voice within her head. _Just leave whatever Caleb is holding and make a break for it. We can survive the way we've been living up till now. Just turn around and–_

"Hey," Caleb's voice interrupted her thoughts and she felt his hand touch her shoulder.

Her eyes flew wide and her entire body went stiff, her own hands reaching out to shove him away from her. "Don't touch me!" she hissed at him. "Don't you ever touch me!"

 _I can't ever let another man touch me!_

Since he wasn't wearing his sunglasses, Heather could see that Caleb's green eyes were filled with alarm and worry, but he held his hands up and backed away from her. "Easy, I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Well you should have!" she barked, ignoring Dogmeat defensive growls and marching toward the now open gates to get some space between her and Caleb.

The Lone Wanderer followed her silently into the town, allowing her to just continue walking down the slope, even though she had no idea where she was going. Heather was just so shaken and terrified over how a simple touch gave her that reaction that her first instinct was to fight and get the threat away from her. It was only when she found herself face to face with the infamous bomb of Megaton that she finally stopped walking and stared at the nuke amazed. It was one thing to hear stories about the bomb that always threatened the day to day lives of the citizens of Megaton, but to actually stand in front of it was an entirely different thing.

"My God," she gasped, circling the bomb slowly.

"It was a complete bitch to disarm that thing," Caleb spoke beside her, grimacing at the enormous nuke.

She had completely forgotten she was mad at him and turned to ask, "How on earth did you manage it?"

"I honestly have no idea. The entire time I was working on it, I kept thinking I was going to fuck it up and kill myself and everyone living here. I'm just thankful that all my tinkering and reading back at the Vault gave me enough knowledge to be able to deactivate it."

"Well, that explains how you were able to disarm my frag mines so easily," she muttered as she continued to stare at the bomb. "Why haven't they moved it? It shouldn't be hard to just transfer it out of here."

"Yeah, I suggested they contact the Brotherhood, but at this point in Megaton's life, the bomb has become a sort of landmark. I didn't fight them on it though and made sure to remove the plutonium and explosives so even if someone reactivates it, it won't go off."

Heather nodded and for a moment stopped to admire what a good person Caleb was. He selflessly risked his life countless times to save people and give them better lives. He had faced an entire stronghold of slavers with nothing but himself, a gun and a dog by his side and freed her. Because of him, for the first time in ten years, she didn't have to live with the dreadful weight of an explosive slave collar around her neck. And just moments ago, she snapped at him for touching her shoulder.

Feeling ashamed, she turned to him and said, "Look, I'm sorry I snapped. I just . . . I just can't stand being touched. Not after–"

"Hey, it's fine," Caleb interrupted her, flashing his charming smile. "You've been through a lot and it's understandable that you don't want any physical contact with people. You just looked so panicked while we were waiting for the gates to open, I instinctively reached out to try and calm you down."

"I'm just not comfortable being around so many people. Especially men. It's hard to feel safe when you can't trust anyone."

As she spoke, she cast her gaze around the layers town around them, feeling nervous every time someone walked by and being extra cautious around them. None of them were looking at her, but it felt like they were all out to get her for some reason. To her, it felt like each and every one of them was someone looking to make some quick caps and sell her back into slavery.

"Heather, you're getting that panicked look in your eyes again," Caleb told her softly. She noticed him start to reach out, but he realized what he was doing and stopped himself. "Look, how about we go see Doc Church and Moira? You can sell them whatever you want and them we'll look into getting some food."

She nodded stiffly and followed him as he led her to the small clinic only a short walk away from where they currently stood. The inside of the clinic was dark with only a bit of sunlight streaming in through the cracks in the walls and ceiling and the air smelled like stale medicine and blood. Seated at a desk, she saw a middle-aged African American man with white hair and a beard listening to the radio with a relaxed look on his face. But at the sound of their footsteps, the doctors disposition quickly soured and he glared at the two of them.

"Caleb, you best be dying of something, cause you know how I hate being bothered," he snapped at the Lone Wanderer. Glancing at Dogmeat, who had followed them in, he added, "And get that filthy animal out of here.

"Trust me, Doc, I know all too well not to come here unless I'm five minutes from deaths door," Caleb chuckled, opening the door to let Dogmeat out. "But my friend here wanted to see you about selling some medical equipment she's found scavenging."

Doc Church turned a critical eye toward Heather and assessed her for a moment before scoffing and tossing a pen onto his desk. "All right, let's get this done quickly so you can both get out of my hair."

Heather wordlessly sorted through and presented all the medicine and chems she had found while out in the Wastelands and was able to get a little over one hundred caps for everything and a free medical procedure that she could use at any time. When it was all said and done, she was about to leave when Church stopped her and gave her an extra twenty caps, his eyes suddenly filled with guilt and glancing down at her neck every few seconds. She could already tell he had guessed her past just by looking at the tan line that surrounded her entire neck.

 _I need to get more sun,_ she thought bitterly as she accepted the caps and left with Caleb. _And why did he look so guilty?_

But those thoughts were easily pushed aside when she and Caleb arrived at Craterside Supply and she met Moira. To describe that woman in one word, Heather would have to go with: optimistic. The twenty-something year old store owner was extremely peppy and cheerful, which made Heather immediately think that something was wrong with her if she was able to be this happy in a post-apocalyptic Wasteland. So she rushed through selling the rest of her equipment, settling for one hundred and sixty-two caps and some ammo for her rifle.

With a purse full of caps and a lighter load on her shoulders, Heather walked out of the supply store in a much better mood than when she stepped in and turned to Caleb, indicating that he should decide where they go next. The former Vault-dweller rubbed the back of his neck and gave it some thought.

"Are you hungry?" he asked her finally. "I know we haven't eaten since breakfast, and it's nearly dinner time."

As he brought it up, Heather's stomach chose at that moment to grumble loudly and she blushed in embarrassment. But Caleb just laughed and led her over to one of the larger buildings with a sign up front called Moriarty's Saloon.

"Is this a bar?" she asked Caleb as they walked inside.

"Yeah, I don't usually come here, mostly cause the owner is a complete dick, but the bartender he has working for him is really nice," he explained. As they approached the bar, Dogmeat's tail began to wag rapidly and Caleb raised a hand in greeting to a bartender with their back facing toward them. "Hey, Gob, you beautiful son of a bitch, I'm back!"

The bartender turned around and Heather had to hold her breath when the face of a ghoul made itself known. Throughout her life, she had very little interaction with the mutated sub-species of human, and despite how friendly the ones she had met were, it still shocked her every time she saw a ghoul's face.

"Caleb, I've missed you coming in for drinks," the ghoul known as Gob said in a rasping voice.

"Ha, I knew you loved me!"

"Well, you're one of the few people who treat me decently around here and Moriarty's been especially nasty lately, so a friendly face is welcome." The ghoul smiled when Dogmeat ran around the bar counter and greeted him with several affectionate licks across his decayed skin. "Hey, Dogmeat. I have some nice treats I've been saving for you."

"Gob, think you can get some food for me and my friend here?" Caleb asked, taking a seat at the bar.

Heather sat beside Caleb and for the first time since entering, Gob turned his attention to her, giving her a crooked smile. "Caleb, who's this pretty little lady? I didn't know you had gotten yourself a girlfriend."

"I'm not his girlfriend," Heather stated softly, a blush returning to her cheeks.

"Not even I'm that lucky," Caleb chuckled. "Nah, Heather here is just a friend I made out in the Wastelands. I escorted her here so she could make some caps trading goods she's also looking into possibly settling down here."

"Well, if you do settle down here, I'll give you a discount on drinks," Gob informed her. "Any friend of Caleb's is a friend of mine."

Heather managed a small smile and nodded to the ghoul. "Thanks, Gob, that's very kind of you."

If a ghoul could blush, she could have sworn Gob was, because all of a sudden he ducked his head and avoided eye contact, sputtering over his words. "Yeah, well, it's the least I can do. So what can I get the two of you? A brahmin died a couple of days ago, so we've got a nice brahmin stew cooking."

"We'll take two bowls of that," Caleb nodded, looking over at Heather. "Want something in particular to drink?"

"Anything non-alcoholic would be fine," she answered, staring down at the counter and getting an uncomfortable feeling around the back of her mind.

"You don't drink?"

"Only when I want to really forget."

The bad feeling kept nagging her as Caleb told her stories of the things he'd seen and done in the Capital Wastelands. He told her about the first time he saw a Yao guai and how he almost had his hand bitten off. He also told her about fighting a Behemoth mutant right in front of the GNR building and how the body is still rotting away in the courtyard. Heather tried to seem interested and pay attention, but it was difficult when it felt like something was wrong and she had no idea what.

"Are you okay?" Caleb asked her, finishing off the last of his stew. "You seem distracted."

Heather swirled her spoon around in the last bit of broth at the bottom of her bowl and shrugged, taking a small sip of her Nuka-Cola. "I guess I'm just tired. I didn't really get much sleep last night being camped out in the open."

"Do you have a place to stay?" Gob asked her, leaning against the counter. "If not, I can get you a room for the night."

"I think that might be best. I probably just need a good nights sleep and I'll feel better when I wake up in the morning."

She gave Gob twenty caps to rent out the upstairs room, which included breakfast in the morning, and waved goodbye to Caleb, still sitting at the bar with his Rum & Nuka and Dogmeat at his feet, gnawing on a large leg bone. Before Gob let her into the room, Heather spared a moment to take a look around the bar, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

 _Maybe I'm just being paranoid._

 **oOo**

It had been hours after she had gone to bed that it happened. She had taken off her leggings and skirt to go to sleep, but had kept the blouse on since there was only enough blanket to cover her legs. The bad feeling she had been getting had followed her into her dreams and they had turned into nightmares. Nightmares where she was being groped and raped by the slaver that had taken her and her mother. They wouldn't stop.

"Please, stop," she whimpered out loud.

Their full weight was on top of her, crushing her and leaving her gasping for air as they ripped her shirt off and grabbed her breast in a harsh grip.

"No!"

"I knew you'd grow up to be a hot piece of ass," his voice broke through the cloud of nightmares and the awful scent of alcohol laden breath made her gag. "Came right in time too. My dick was aching for some and I didn't want to have to pay Nova for another lay."

Heather opened her eyes and her breath hitched in pure terror as she realized that her nightmares weren't just dreams. Someone was in her room, on top of her, groping at her breasts after having ripped open her shirt.

"No!" she cried softly, beginning to struggle against him. "No, get off of me!"

"Shut the fuck up," he spat at her. "Just take what's coming to you."

Tears started to freely fall from her eyes and she kept struggling and fighting against him, trying desperately to get him off of her long enough for her to make a break for it. She could already feel the male hardness of him pressing against her stomach and sending a fresh wave of panic throughout her entire body. When he grabbed her panties and started to roughly pull them down, Heather opened her mouth to let out a scream, only to have his hand clamp it shut.

"Just relax, it'll be over soon," he breathed hotly against her ear, licking it.

Heather screamed against his hand, her legs flailing out wildly as she fought. Her nails scratched at his face and he started to curse, moving his hand away from her mouth to backhand her. It was long enough to be able to scream.

"Help me! Somebody!" she sobbed.

In the bar below, she heard the sound of glass breaking and a door being thrown open. Murmurs of alarm came next, followed by a dog growling and then finally, her door being kicked in. In a blink, the man that was on top of her was roughly being pulled away and she pressed her back against the wall behind her as she watch Caleb savagely beat him. The look of fury on his face and the wild, crazed look in her eye frightened her a bit, but she couldn't look away as she watched each punch land on her potential rapist.

Looking at her attacker, she realized she knew who he was and all of a sudden Heather was an eight year old girl again, looking at a bald man with a goatee who whispered that sick promise to her that one day, he would come back to violate her. Covering her mouth, she slid down the wall and drew her knees up to her chest, rocking back and forth as tears continued to fall down her face and the man known as Jericho got beaten to a bloody pulp.

"Caleb!" Gob's voice intervened. "Caleb, stop it, he's out! You'll fucking kill him and then you're going to be the one in trouble!"

But Caleb didn't seem to be listening. He just kept punching and kicking at Jericho's unconscious body while Dogmeat barked from where he stood on the bed with Heather, acting as a barrier between her and her attacker. She wanted Jericho dead, she wanted it more than anything right now, but she couldn't stand seeing Caleb look this savage. The look in his eyes was one that promised death to any who got between him and the one he intended to bring suffering upon. It was not a look that suited him one bit.

"Caleb, please, stop!" Heather cried, her voice catching on a sob as she begged the Lone Wanderer to cease beating the pig of a man.

Caleb's punching stopped and he was breathing heavily as he stood over Jericho, blood and bruises covering his knuckles and an angered and sad look on his face. He turned his gaze to her, the raw emotions of rage, confusion and helplessness swirling together in a breathtaking combination, and he took a couple of shaken steps toward the bed, his legs giving out when he reached the end. He stayed there sitting, looking at her and reaching out with a bloody hand before he caught himself and pulled back.

"Heather, talk to me," he begged her, his voice rougher than usual. "Tell me you're okay. Tell me that bastard didn't hurt you."

Heather couldn't answer and instead threw herself into his arms, seeking comfort from him as she sobbed hysterically into his shoulder. Caleb's arms immediately wrapped themselves around her and his body trembled as he rubbed her back to try and calm her, his voice making soothing noises. She normally wouldn't have been able to handle a man touching her the way Caleb was now. She would have started hyperventilating and getting panicked without question. But in Caleb's arms, she felt safe.

"I was so scared," she sobbed.

She couldn't see the few tears he shed as he gently rocked her and stroked her soft hair. "I know you were. I'm so sorry I couldn't stop him before he came in here. I'm so sorry."

Heather shook her held and shuffled closer into his embrace. He didn't need to apologize, he stopped Jericho before anything really bad happened and that was all that mattered right now. Sure, she felt more fears and trauma's being added to her extensive list, but she knew she could live with it so long as Caleb was there to help her though them.

He was her protector. Her savior. He wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.

 _We need him._

* * *

 _So, needless to say, that was rough. Heather had to go through a few traumatizing moments and was forced to see a very dark side of Caleb. A side that we will be learning about more in depth soon enough._

 _Hope you liked the chapter. Don't forget to **Fave/Follow/Review!**_

 _Love,_

 _Mirage_


	4. Chapter 4

_Sorry if this chapter took a bit longer than the others, but I've got a move coming up and I was playing Fallout 3 a lot to do some more research for upcoming chapters. The next chapter might actually be delayed at most a month. I have a surgery scheduled on the 21st to have ALL my wisdom teeth removed ((Super nervous cause I have to get put under with anesthesia and I've never had that happen to me before)) and then on the 29th I'll be moving to a different state, followed by a concert on the 2nd of August ((So excited for that))._

 _This chapter will have a lot of angsty feels from both our characters, but mostly Caleb, since we'll be finding out something about him that would affect him regularly since it can be considered a disability or disorder._

 _I hope you all enjoy this story._

 _Don't forget to **Fave/Follow/Review!**_

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

 _"Stay close," Caleb commanded hoarsely. "And stay low."_

 _Doctor Li and the other scientists heeded his words and they all dropped into a crouch as they followed him through the underground tunnels that ran from under the Jefferson Memorial. He personally had no idea where they led, but the thing he knew for sure is that there were Enclave soldiers on their tail and plenty of ghouls ahead of them._

Wouldn't be the fucking underground without some feral ghouls, _Caleb thought bitterly to himself, swallowing the lump in his throat that hadn't gone away since the disruption with Project Purity was activated and the radiation killed–_

 _"Ghouls!" shouted one of the scientists behind him._

 _Caleb expertly aimed his pistol at the vile creature running at them and fired a shot, hitting its head and sending it sprawling to the ground. He fired a couple more rounds into it, partly to make sure it was dead, but mostly because red was the only color he was seeing right now in a world that suddenly turned black and white. No one ever got a happy ending in the Capitol Wastelands. If he had just realized it sooner, then he would still be alive._

 _Wiping away the stray tear that escaped his eye, Caleb continued to lead Doctor Li and her team through the tunnels, shooting down any feral ghouls that barred their path and being mindful that Enclave soldiers could be waiting around any corner. He felt like they were nearing the end and were traveling up a flight of metal stairs when a laser blast shot right past his ear and hit the leg of an engineer named Daniel._

 _"Get him out of here!" Caleb barked at Doctor Li and one of the male scientists before turning to face their foes._

 _Four Enclave soldiers were running at them, armed in power armor and wielding energy weapons. Caleb knew right away that the odds were against him, but he was too furious to care. Raising his pistol and hiding most of his body behind some metal plating, he fired blindly at the approaching enemy. Two went down by the time his clips ran dry and he tossed the pistol aside with a muttered curse. Going to his fail-safe, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a grenade, yanking the pin out with his teeth before lobbing it at the soldiers. Just as he was about to duck and cover, a laser blast hit his shoulder and he collapsed on the walkway, crying out in pain and placing his hand over the injury._

 _The whole area shook as the grenade went off and Caleb forced himself to sit up. He had no way of know whether they all died in the blast, so he grabbed the shotgun off his back and rested his back against the metal half-wall, waiting. It was only a moment later that he heard uneven footsteps approaching and a soldier stepped into his line of fire._

 _"Shit!" the soldier shouted right as Caleb fired the shotgun aimed directly at his face._

 _Blood and gore sprayed everywhere as the soldiers head exploded and the body fell limp beside him, one leg still twitching before going stock still. Not bothering to wipe the bits of brain off his face, Caleb got up with a pained groan and started walking over to where the grenade went off. He passed the bodies of two dead soldiers as he walked, but fired at their heads for the hell of it. He was already looking for the fourth soldier when he heard a groan of pain and spotted him trying to crawl away. A red haze began to cloud Caleb's vision as he walked on over._

 _"You won't get very far with your leg like that," Caleb muttered darkly, eyeing the mangled mess the grenade blast had reduced the leg to. Aiming his shotgun at the man's leg, he fired and was pleased with the screams of pain coming from the Enclave soldier. "Oh, look at that. I've gone and made it worse."_

 _Caleb dropped to a knee beside the injured soldier, the pain in his shoulder forgotten. Reaching over with one hand, he forcefully removed the soldiers helmet and looked into the eyes of a young man around his age. His eyes were full of fear and agony. If Caleb would have encountered someone in his situation before the events of today, he would have tried to heal him as best he could, or at the very least end his suffering._

 _But right now, after what happened earlier, Caleb was a very different person. He wanted_ _this man to suffer for the wrongs the Enclave had committed. He wanted justice. He wanted this man to feel pain so intense that it reflected the pain in Caleb's own heart tenfold._

 _Pulling a hammer out from the tool belt he had already been wearing before everything turned to shit, Caleb glared directly into this man's eyes, silently sending him a dark promise of the pain that was about to come. Raising the hammer over his head, the soldier's terrified cry was silenced as it was brought down against his skull. And then again. And again. And again._

 _The hammer Caleb wielded kept smashing into the man's skull over and over again, blood and bits of bone and brain spattering on his face and arms as he reduced it to a mushy pulp. When he was done with that one, he moved on to the already dead soldiers and repeated the process, again and again, letting the rage inside consume him._

 **oOo**

"Shit!" Caleb cursed as the grease from the molerat steak spattered once more and hit his hand. "Every time I try and cook!"

"Sir, are you sure you wouldn't prefer if I cooked your meal?" Wadsworth asked from where he was hovering nearby.

Scoffing, he shook his head at the robot. "Wadsworth, last time they left a bot in charge of food, my birthday cake blew up."

"A bot blew up your birthday cake?" Heather's voice came from the landing upstairs.

Caleb turned away from the hotplate, taking a step back when the grease spattered again, and looked up at her. It had been a week since the incident back at Moriarty's Saloon with Jericho and he had brought her back to his house here in Megaton after it happened for her protection. The first couple of days she had spent closed off and quiet, but after the initial shock of Jericho's attack had faded she started talking again and getting comfortable with her surroundings.

"Yeah," Caleb finally answered her with a grin. "Back in the vault, it was my tenth birthday and one of those Mister Handy butler bots cut my cake in half with a chainsaw. There was frosting all over the counter and all over the maintenance guy in charge of the damned thing."

Heather let out a soft chuckle and made her way down the stairs, joining him beside the hotplate. Caleb watched her as she stared and studied the molerat steaks, her mouth opening slightly as if she were about to say something, but then quickly shut it.

"Got something on your mind?" he asked her, turning back to the steaks and cautiously reaching out to try and flip them without splashing the grease.

"You have the heat on too high," she murmured, looking as if she wanted to step in. "May I?"

Caleb arched a brow at her, giving her a cool smirk before stepping back and handing her the fork he had been using to flip the steaks. "Go right ahead,"

She took the fork from him and fiddled with the knobs of the hotplate to lower the temperature quickly and then expertly flipped the steaks without splashing the grease. Caleb watched her for a few moments, impressed with how well she was managing and crossed his arms.

"You're pretty good at that," he chuckled. "I would have burned myself four more times by now."

"I was in charge of cooking," she explained, never taking her eyes off of the steaks. "They figured it was woman's work anyways, so they had me do it from the moment I got there."

Caleb figured she was talking about the slavers and shifted uncomfortably as he sat down on the benched table. "And, how long were you with them?" He saw her whole body was tense and she was silent for several long moments, making him regret even asking her. "Sorry, I can understand if you don't want to talk about it."

"Ten years. They snatched me, my mom and a few other women from our town that doesn't even exist anymore when I was eight."

He was shocked at how Heather's voice took a deadpanned tone as she said that and found himself at a loss for words. The very knowledge that she spent the majority of her life as a slave was sickening. She had her childhood stolen from her.

A sudden, disgusting thought came to him and Caleb couldn't stop himself. "Wait, so if they had you since you were eight, does that mean that they–"

Heather whirled on him and stopped him before he could finish with the darkest glare he'd ever seen on a woman. "No, they didn't," she hissed at him, her hand clenching around the fork so hard, the whites of her knuckles were showing. "Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of guys who wouldn't have batted an eye when it came to fucking kids, but Jermaine wasn't going to tolerate that kind of shit in his stronghold. Nice to know at least he had a moral line."

"Jermaine?" Caleb repeated, arching a brow.

Turning back to the hotplate, she continued cooking the steaks. "Yeah, I think you might remember him. You shot him in the shoulder and then he jumped out a window."

"Wait, are you talking about that guy who had a fucking gun pointed at your head, ready to shoot?"

Transferring the steaks onto a pair of chipped plates, she dropped them onto the picnic table and stared at him with her hands on her hips. "You know, you're asking me a lot of personal shit when I don't know anything about you. How about you share a bit about yourself before trying to pry into my past?"

Caleb winced at that and raked his hand through his hair. "Well, you listen to GNR all day, I would think you would know all about me considering Three Dog never stops talking about the the Lone Wanderer from Vault 101."

"Yeah, but that's some guy on the radio who could just be making stuff up. I have the actual Lone Wanderer right in front of me and would rather hear some answers straight from his very mouth."

Staring at her, Caleb felt extremely uncomfortable with the idea of talking about himself. Before he first set foot in the Wastelands, his life had been pretty dull, waking up every morning to work security around the Vault and passing a lot of his time helping his dad around the clinic. But after the Vault, life got . . . dark . . . and he wasn't really sure if he wanted to tell Heather the illusive details that made their way out of Three Dog's news reports. However, he knew that if he was ever going to get this woman in front of him to share some stuff about herself, then he was just going to have to bite the bullet and tell her some personal details.

"Fine, but there's gonna be rules," he sighed heavily. "We each are allowed to pass on a question we're too uncomfortable answering. Deal?"

Heather smiled a bit and nodded, having a seat across from him at the table. "I was going to suggest that very thing myself. So, since you already asked me stuff, I get to go first."

Caleb grabbed a fork and a knife and started to cut into the molerat steak, surprised at how juicy it looked. "Yeah, yeah, go ahead."

"Okay . . . so, what was it like growing up in Vault 101?"

"It was pretty normal for the most part," he answered, taking a bite of the steak and letting out satisfied moan when the meat juices exploded in his mouth. "Holy shit, this is the best molerat steak I've ever had. I can never get mine to stay this juicy."

"The secret is to cook it low and slow," she told him around a mouthful of steak. "If you cook it at a high temperature, it gets all dried out. Now you were saying?"

"There's really not much to say. I grew up like any other kid in the Vault, learned a lot of scientific stuff working with my dad in the clinic. When I was sixteen I took the G.O.A.T and learned that I was best suited for a career working security around the Vault and when I wasn't doing patrols, I was volunteering in the clinic."

He looked up from his steak to find Heather staring at him, her attention fully captivated by his every word and a look of envy in her blue-gray eyes. "That sounds like such a quiet and peaceful life."

"To be honest, it was very dull and being surrounded by metal walls all day was really claustrophobic. I couldn't really breathe easily until I stepped out of there last year and had space around me for miles around." Caleb swallowed another bite of steak and washed it down with a Nuka-Cola. "Alright, my turn. Do you have any family you know of that might still be around?"

Heather frowned and shook her head right away. "No, I don't. When the slavers attacked our settlement, they killed my father and all the other men. My mother and I were still together once we were taken as slaves; Jermaine kept her as his personal bed warmer. But she died overdosing on chems a few days before I turned sixteen."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's okay. At least she didn't have to see what happened to me on my birthday."

Caleb could only guess what had happened, but it didn't stop him from asking, "What happened?"

Instead of answering, Heather dodged his question by asking, "You know, I always wondered this and I just have to ask. Did you ever find your dad?"

The uncomfortable and awful feeling knot of sadness and anger formed in Caleb's stomach when she asked that, but he swallowed hard and nodded stiffly. "Yeah, I found him."

"That's good. Is he living in Rivet City? Three Dog mentioned something about a machine in the Jefferson Memorial you both were working on."

"Pass."

Her eyes widened a bit, but he looked at her with darkened eyes, making it extremely clear that he did not want to talk about it. "I'd rather avoid any subject matter involving my father, if that's alright with you."

She was silent for a few moments, but nodded. "Fine."

Both of them fell into a tense silence, Heather eating her steak in silence while Caleb tossed pieces of steak under the table for Dogmeat. For a while the only sound that filled the room was the mechanical hum of Wadsworth's machinery and the tap of forks and knives of the dinner plates. This whole thing of asking each other questions had been a bad idea and both of them were too nosey for their own good to not ask the more personal questions. To the other, they were each a mysterious puzzle and their curiosity was begging them to solve it.

Caleb cleared his throat and decided to ask another question. "When I rescued you, I left you in that town–"

"The Republic of Dave," she scoffed bitterly, shoving her plate away and dropping half of her steak on the floor for Dogmeat.

"Why did you leave? It looked safe enough. There were more women than men."

Heather's eyes hardened with a glare and she crossed her arms over her chest. "Two of those women were Dave's wives. The rest were his daughters. Dave was actually very pleased that you dropped me off in his little settlement because he was needing a new wife and with me there, he wouldn't have had to pick one of his older daughters."

Caleb nearly choked on his sip of Nuka-Cola when she said that and thumped his chest to clear it, staring at her in shock. "He had planned on marrying one of his daughters?"

"Yeah, the sick fuck wanted to repopulate the Wastelands with his offspring. There were only two other men in that settlement and both were his sons. His first wife didn't want that to happen to her daughters though, so I helped her rig the election and made her President of the settlement instead of Dave. Then I was given a purse full of caps and supplies for two weeks to escort him out of the settlement and make sure he never returned."

"How did you manage that one?"

Heather looked him dead in the eye. "I shot him in the head."

Caleb looked down at his plate and felt terrible for having left her there. "Heather, I'm sorry . . . if I had know, I wouldn't have ever left you there."

She shrugged. "I didn't let him get near me and his first wife kept me safe from him while I was there." She paused and then asked, "Why did you almost beat Jericho to the point of death? You could have stopped after knocking him out, but you kept going."

Caleb dropped his fork and knife and stared at what was left of his steak, his appetite completely gone. Sighing heavily, he dropped the rest of the food on the floor for his dog. "Seems like Dogmeat ate better than both of us."

"Are you avoiding my question?"

"No, just delaying answering it." He rubbed his hand across his face and exhaled a large breath, feeling extremely jittery now. "Okay, so, you know how a lot of people here in the Wastelands assume people from the Vault have lucked out on life and have very little wrong with them health-wise, right?"

"Yeah, I mean, there's no radiation inside of vaults."

"And normally, you'd be right. Except I wasn't born inside of the Vault. I was born in the Jefferson Memorial, right beside Rivet City."

Heather arched a brow at him. "I don't understand."

Caleb sighed again and ran his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit of his. "What I'm trying to say is that I'm just as fucked up as anyone else born in the Wastelands. I have a behavioral disorder that doctors like to call, intermittent explosive disorder, a.k.a sub-psychotic rage."

"So, you suffer from rage?"

"I wasn't always angry back in the Vault. I had a shorter temper than most, but my dad was always around to keep me in check. But then the Enclave showed up at the Jefferson Memorial last year and they got all the anger and rage my dad helped me keep bottled up throughout the years. When I went against the soldiers that were following us in the tunnels underneath the memorial . . . Wasteland raiders couldn't compete in how brutal and ruthless I was in killing them. Their own mother's wouldn't have been able to recognize them."

He looked up to see Heather staring at him with a sad look on her face. He nearly mistook it for pity, but he checked himself and realized she was just sad in general. The look on her face now was the look that dominated the expression in her eyes every day. It was out in the open for him to see.

"Finally done hiding your own misery?"

"I lived the majority of my life as a slave, Caleb," she murmured, wiping a tear away. "Everyone I know is dead or just gone. It just seem like life is bleak and hopeless. Not even the Lone Wanderer, the savior of the Capitol Wastelands, can have a somewhat happy life."

"Who says I'm not happy?"

"How can you be when your father is dead?"

Caleb swallowed against the lump in his throat and took a deep breath. "Guess you're smart enough to read between the lines, huh?"

"The Enclave is the reason he's dead, aren't they?"

"Yeah, he refused to let them take over the project that he and my mom started working on together, so he sabotaged the whole machine and pumped the memorial full of radiation. He died right in front of me and I had to leave him there. After I got the rest of the scientists out of there and took care of the Enclave after us, I kind of just abandoned the project and wandered around the Wastelands, doing some good to try and make dad proud."

He saw her open her mouth to say something, but then she stopped and shook her head. "Well, you saved me, so you are doing good."

"Doesn't help with the crushing loneliness you get when you lose everyone." He reached under the table and pet Dogmeat's head and added, "Dogmeat's been able to help that aspect a bit though."

"I can understand that. Loneliness is a common depression that plagues the Wastelands. At least you have someone, even if he is a dog. And you're beloved by so many people."

"I'd gladly give up my fame for just one person I can call family."

"If I had anything to give, I'd probably do the same."

Caleb stared at her across the table, sad about the fact that like him, she was all alone in the world, with no one around to give her safety or affection. The fact that she was a woman made it even harder for her to find safe haven for herself because it was extremely hard for someone like her to be able to trust anyone who wasn't of her gender. He was amazed that she didn't completely hate men due to her past.

"Here's my next question," he started, an idea coming to him so suddenly that he just needed to say it. "Dogmeat and I are terrible at taking care of ourselves and that room upstairs is just a place for Wadsworth to hover. Would you consider living here with us as our roommate?"

Heather looked at him, completely shocked and then looked down, seeming to be at a loss of what to say. "I . . . I don't know if I should. I'd be a huge bother and just take up space. And I've got severe trust issues."

"And I have episodes of sub-psychotic rage. Look, I'm not asking you to be a bed slave like you were back at that stronghold, I'm asking you to be my friend and roommate, a makeshift family that consists of an angry guy, a closed off girl, a junkyard dog, and a robot butler."

Caleb saw the corners of her lips turn up and she let out a soft chuckle. "That sounds like an extremely weird family, Caleb."

"Show me one normal family here in the Wastelands."

She sighed and rhythmically tapped on the table top for several moment. "Well, it's not like I have anywhere else to go. Megaton is about as safe as any other town in the Wastelands and at least here, there's someone I know and trust a bit."

Caleb arched a brow and looked surprised. "You trust me?"

"Enough to know you won't try and do anything any other man in the wastelands might try. I still wouldn't want you in my personal space, I might not ever want any man get really close to me ever again, but I would consider you a friend."

"Well, I can live with that," he decided with a nod. He smiled at her and reached out with his hand, offering a shake. "Welcome to your new home, Heather."

She smiled and slowly reached out to take his hand, shaking it quickly and letting go. "Nice to be here, roomie."

* * *

 _So, Caleb suffers from episodes of sub-psychotic rage. His dad was the only thing that kept him in line and with Liam Neeson dead, there's nothing keeping Caleb from just snapping at even the slightest thing. But at least he and Heather have established a friendship and formed a weird little family. That's good, right?_

 _Hope you liked the chapter. Don't forget to **Fave/Follow/Review!**_

 _Love,_

 _Mirage_


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